Author: MyBaconPress

Weird Developments…

by MyBaconPress

I’m not sure why Katie Porter is staying in the Senate race in California any more. The DNC has declared that the nominee WILL be Adam Schiff. (Apparently, Adam’s check cleared first.) I don’t really have anything against Schiff. I just prefer Porter. But what the voters may or may not want is never too bothersome to either of the parties. Schiff is the guy.

As nearly as I can tell, that decision was made when Katie pointed out that Adam takes PAC money. (She doesn’t.) The DNC thought that was a very unfair characterization. It’s accurate. It’s just very unfair of her to mention it and the moment Katie highlighted the PAC money, the Dems made their choice (notably, to protect PAC money) and brought out their support arsenal. For example, Barbara Boxer had said she was going to stay out of it and let the voters decide. Then Katie mentioned the PAC money and Boxer publicly endorsed Schiff.

The rhetoric of America is that we’re a democracy and we get to vote for the candidate of our choice. The reality of America is that we get to choose between the candidates the parties choose. That’s different, and it sucks…

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Here’s a weird thing. A couple of years ago, the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court ruled to overturn using race as a consideration in admissions to the University of North Carolina and the infamous diploma mill, Harvard.

But on Friday, Feb 2, that same court ruled that West Point can STILL use race as a factor when choosing it’s students. The court spewed some blather, of course. They said the case before them was underdeveloped so they were going to leave the question alone, leaving race in admissions in place.

But if some colleges can not use race as a deciding factor, why can the military colleges? ARE they ensuring diversity that matches the rank and file and/or the country? Or are they ensuring that mostly white men stay in charge of the military, with what seems like the blessing of the most corrupt high court? Like I said, weird.

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Congress – well, the Senate, really – in a rare moment of consensus, negotiated a bipartisan border bill. After years of screaming about the border from MAGAGOPCORP, Dems and cons, alike, were finally getting to the point of doing something about it.

The cons, of course, are ecstatic. They’ve wanted this for a long time and now? After all these years and all those tears and spreading all those fears? FINALLY! A bill is coming together. So the celebration started and they… wait, what? What do you mean, “No?” ”But after all that?” ”But we’re trying to…”

Okay, never mind. It turns out, MAGA doesn’t really care about the border. They care about having the border issue. Donny can’t run on the economy. The economy is ticking along just fine, thank you very much. He can keep screaming “Drill, baby drill!” but the US is currently putting out record amounts of oil and gas. (Cons think prices are high because of low inventory. It’s actually pure greed, but cons don’t want to understand things. They just want to bitch about things.)

So, when a border deal was nearly reached, Donny crapped his panties. What does he run on then? How well he’s stalling in all of his criminal trials? Actually, he might. One would think he would like to keep a lid on all of that but he talks of very little else, as far as I can see. So, he ordered his toadies on Congress to scuttle the deal and it looks like that’s their plan. Even if a more rational Senate does go through with it, the House will kill it in the name of MAGA.

Conservative opposition to the border bill will certainly please their lord and master, Donny. It seems, though, as if it might throw a wrench into their show plans to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for his “failures” at the border.

I call it a show because the cons don’t really have a case. They just want to demonstrate that they can CREATE a false impeachment, just like they nullified the genuine and necessary impeachment of their beloved Donny. They’ll introduce the articles. If it gets that far, this whole thing will die in the Senate.
“Secretary Mayorkas, why didn’t you secure the border?”
“Um, because the loudmouth cons killed the bipartisan Senate border bill.”
“Yeah, not guilty. Get back to work.”

I know that humanity is very good at holding two conflicting ideas at the same time but “fix the border but for the gods sake don’t fix the border?” What a mind fu–er, how confusing! They’ve kind of taken away their candidate’s best campaign issue. Not among MAGA, of course, but for all their blather, they’re going to need far more than MAGA in the general and everyone BUT MAGA knows the border deal was killed BY MAGA…

The Trials…

by MyBaconPress

A quick look at Donny’s trials. In the NY fraud trial – no, the civil one, not the criminal one – Judge Engoron said he wanted to issue his ruling by the end of the last month. Clearly, he missed his target. But there’s a reason. Just before he handed down his ruling, he received an update from the independent monitor appointed by the court, former Federal judge Barbara Jones. Tucked into a footnote was a little tidbit that seems to have caught Engoron’s eye.

She found what was claimed to be a loan Donny owed to one of his companies to the tune of $48 million dollars. She asked about it. At first, she was told there were no loan documents available for that loan. Apparently, she was told, no loan documents ever even existed. THEN, the Trump Crime Family finally admitted there was no loan. It was just a way to avoid paying taxes on $48 million dollars. A fraudulent way. More specifically, a criminal way.

My guess is conservative media will spin it as a “minor” error, without mentioning the $48 million dollar part. Donny has already started with that lie. But it wasn’t. Minor, I mean. So, now Engoron has to re-think his ruling. Any rational person must, by now, believe that more fraud will be uncovered the longer people look. Engoron doesn’t want to have to keep going back and resetting his trial every time more evidence comes up and he wants to get the ruling out so I think he has to construct some kind of order that allows him to simply add to the damages as more fraud is uncovered.

Meanwhile, in the Florida stolen files case, prosecutor Jack Smith has reportedly uncovered the existence of a secret room at Mar-a-Lago. Apparently, when the FBI was executing their perfectly legal and proper search warrant in an effort to uncover the files Donny stole, they missed a locked closet AND a “secret” room. Overlooking the locked closet apparently happened because of the deference they were showing while executing their warrant.

This is, after all, an ex-President. NO ex-President has ever committed the crimes Donny has and the need to execute a warrant was unprecedented. They had to make up a proper protocol as they went along and they included deference. So, when they asked about the locked closet, they were told it was an old staircase that wasn’t used anymore and didn’t go anywhere – and the FBI chose to accept that statement at face value! But the information I have is that Donny had the lock changed on that closet January 22, 2021 and he’s the only person with a key.

In fairness to the FBI, they didn’t know about the secret room. It isn’t just a secret room. It’s a hidden, secret room. It’s made to blend in to the room seamlessly and there is a dresser in front of it. My guess is, it’s a panic room, built originally to protect the residents from a home-invasion robbery. They were all the rage among rich people for awhile and I don’t think they’re a bad idea. But a panic room would explain why it didn’t show on the architectural drawings the FBI likely looked at when they did their preparatory briefings before serving the warrant.

Donny has apparently converted his to a documents storage area. Now it gets a bit sticky. The original warrant is stale, for sure. Unless, that is, witnesses testify that more stolen documents exist in that space – and nobody knows what the witnesses are saying about that, yet. Either way, Donny has very likely already shared all the good stuff with Putin so it’s not like we’re going to avoid the national security risks by getting the papers back but it would be nice to know exactly what the traitor breached so any holes could be plugged.

For MY part, I’m enjoying the idea that the room might be where Donny has all the goods on all the MAGAGOPCORP toadies who claim to stand against trump but also snuggle up to him and bend the knee. As an example, after J6, Kevin McCarthy was angry and pointed his crooked little finger directly, and properly, at Donny. THEN, McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago, and immediately changed his tune. Why? Kevin was right about J6 and how Donny put his life at risk. Why just back down after a quick visit with Donny? It’s a least possible Donny showed Kevin what he keeps in that locked room about Kevin.

Finally, the DC Federal election interference trial date has been postponed. It was supposed to start March 5 but now we have to wait. Donny filed an appeal before the trial even started! He claims to have perfect immunity in all things because he was President. It’s a very stupid idea and it’s totally wrong. Sooner or later, the court will say so but they’re dragging their feet for some reason. Worse, right now it’s a three member panel of the appellate court. After their ruling, he can ask the entire court to review the decision, which will take more time. After the full court says no, he can ask the High Kangaroo Court what they want.

He’s not likely to win that argument in court. Hell, he’s not likely to win ANY of his arguments in court. But he doesn’t make them to win them. He makes them to buy time. And this stupid argument is buying him months.

I’ll tell you this: there’s a very real risk Donny’s going to beat the clock on these trials. Benjamin Franklin’s words just keep looping through my head. ”…a Republic…IF you can keep it.” There’s a very real possibility we can’t…

Positioning…

by MyBaconPress

I think Nikki Haley is making a smart play by staying in the GOP primary. She doesn’t NEED a win. She only needs to stay. As Donny’s troubles pile up, she’ll be in the best position to stand up, should he fall down…

His recent mental lapses (yes, he can still recognize an elephant!) are an excellent opportunity for her, as well. She can attack HIM and his current failings without ever attacking MAGA or his pretend record. She can say, “Yeah, he WAS great, but he’s failing now.” Hang in there, Nikki. Stay in his head. Highlight his decline…

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Have you heard? I’m sure you have by now. Taylor Swift is not a young woman superstar pop singer in love with a young man rising star (and not bad actor) football player. Not at all. She’s a “Psyop!” Which, I guess, makes him her “Psyde kick.” MAGA just loves using words they think make them sound smart and “Psyop” fits the bill while also sounding like they’ve got some super-de-duper inside information, so they MUST be in the know. See? Secretly, they’re the smart ones. (It’s a VERY well-kept secret…)

Hey, maybe you’re a normal person so…a “Psyop” is a ‘Psychological Operation’ used to disseminate information the government wants spread and/or suppress information the government does NOT want spread. MAGA thinks rational Americans need the government to tell them Donald Trump is a bad man, a threat to the nation, and that people shouldn’t vote for him. Funny, I figured it out all by myself.

So, to that end, if you’re MAGA, the Stupor Bowl is already rigged for the Chiefs to win – I guess because Taylor Swift doesn’t already have a large enough stage from which to spread her message. AFTER the Chiefs rigged win, see, THEN ‘Tay/Trav’ (okay, that mashup needs a bit of work) can announce that Donny’s a dumbass and people should vote for Biden. (No word on why they couldn’t make that announcement if the Chiefs lose.)

That’s some elaborate insanity, right there…

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In court, where facts matter, Donny isn’t even trying to make a case that he might be innocent of any of the charges brought against him. Instead, he’s looking for technicalities and loopholes. He stalls, disrupts the court, and tries to aggravate judges into over-reactions that can lead to mistrials or work as a basis for an appeal. He never even tries to introduce evidence that might indicate innocence. That part, at least, makes sense. He’s guilty (allegedly). How could he show innocence? He has no choice but to rely on “work-arounds.”

So now he’s filing anything and everything he can think of. Some of it is way out there. So far out there, other lawyers laugh at him and his “team” for even making the filing. His primary “lawyer” is taking a lot of mockery from her fellows. ”Why would she even file that?” ”Doesn’t she know better?” With her, I couldn’t possibly say if she knows better BUT…

Each of those filings gets ruled on. Each one causes a delay. Each one buys Donny a little bit of time. As an example, Donny doesn’t have to part with the $83 million dollar judgement until the case is settled. He even has to put the money up if he wants to appeal so he needs this case to not close yet. The only tool he has to that end is insane filings. ”I can’t be tried by someone with blue eyes!” or whatever. Yeah, he’s going to lose those, too, but he wins a bit of time. And what does he want to DO with that time?

He’s actively looking, right now, for somebody rich enough to help him pay off the judgement. They’re called “mega-donors.” They’re the super rich people now allowed to buy our government thanks to the High Kangaroo Court’s corrupt Citizen United decision. But I’ll tell you this: I find myself wondering why the stable genius billionaire needs help paying what, to him, should be a mere $83.3 million dollar tab. I mean, if you’re a billionaire, isn’t $83 million dollars pocket change?

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Hey, it cuts both ways, though, yes? He filed a defamation case in the England about the Steele Dossier. In keeping with his true calling and maintaining his seemingly endless string, he lost. BUT – and this is kind of fun – the court there never even considered the merits of the case. He lost because he brought it too late. He lost on a technicality…

Fights, Good and Bad…

by MyBaconPress

Wow, what a game. TWICE, now, the Niners have come out and started slow, to say the least. I doubt they’re intentionally spotting their opponents points but it sure looks like they’re spotting their opponents points. Can we please put the “Purdy is a pretender” talk to bed, now? The naysayers can still have “Purdy is less accurate in the rain.” That one, at least, seems to be true. But all the rest? You’re just being stubborn. He’s a very good player. That whole team is loaded but there’s no negative narrative going on about any of the other players. Just Purdy. So just stop, okay?

Detroit played very well. After all these years, it was nice to see Detroit enjoying a bit of success. Not so nice I wanted them to enjoy success over my Niners but still… That’s a team that has suffered for a long, long time. At this rate, I have little doubt they’ll make the leap, here, soon. They played some very good football. In truth, they, THEN played some not so good football but they deserve props. They’ve come a long way in a short time…

I’m not sure what happened to the Ravens. Well, yes, I know the Chiefs happened to the Ravens but the Ravens played badly, all on their own. They started flat, like the Niners did, but never managed to turn things around. Lamar Jackson is something else. This was a very good team, all season long. To fall apart like that in the Championship? There’s going to be some disappointment in the clubhouse for a while.

For the Chiefs it just seemed like business as usual, just another game to be played. Mahomes is still Mahomes, which means a very good football player. Andy Reid is still among the best coaches coaching, these days, and still a better bet than Belichick for GOAT. Of course, one can never overstate the contributions of the vaunted Taylor Swift, either. Normally, when a player on the field does something wonderful/amazing/glorious (or even bad/embarrassing/disastrous), the camera focuses on the player, who gets an extra moment of screen time. When poor Travis Kelce does something great, the camera pans straight to Taylor Swift, for her reaction shot. (Spoiler alert: she’s happy for her boyfriend.)

Hopefully, we’ll all get to see how Taylor looks when she’s sad because her boyfriend is about to lose the Stupor Bowl on February 11. The camera will absolutely grab that screenshot, just like they do when she’s celebrating. She has asked them to tone it down, a bit – they just don’t comply. Why would they? They get free celebrity endorsement from Swift every game and they don’t even have to pay her.

I expect a heck of a game. I HOPE the Niners win but I wouldn’t BET the Niners will win. These are two very good teams. Sadly, I think one of the most glaring problems for either team is the Niners Defensive Coordinator, Steve Wilkes. That guy just doesn’t understand the Niner defense. Last year the Niners defense was top-of-the-charts under DeMeco Ryans, as it was the year before that under Robert Saleh. They’re pretty porous with Wilkes at the helm. That could prove to be the difference in the big, dumb game this year…

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Can somebody help me out, here, please? I’ve been looking for information about how HAMAS is fighting back against Israel. I can’t find anything. Whenever I go looking, all is get is references to the oh-so-stupid HAMAS attack on Oct 7. I DID see a story about how some HAMAS fighters used a rocket to kill three Israeli soldiers preparing to blow up a building but there’s precious little else.

Netanyahu says he isn’t stopping until all of HAMAS is wiped out. It’s hard to blame him for feeling that way, but he ALSO seems to think that every Palestinian is HAMAS. He also seems to be trying to expand the fight from just Gaza to the West Bank. To me? He seems to think this is his chance, once and for all, to get rid of the Palestinians. ALL of the Palestinians. The whole world has asked him to stand down. He just thumbs his nose.

I’ll tell you this: Netanyahu may not be saying ‘from the river to the sea’ but he sure seems to be doing ‘from the river to the sea.’

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There’s a guy running against Putin in the upcoming Russian “elections.” That’s some guts. He will either end up in some Russian prison (“Say ‘hello’ to Nalvany for me…”) or dead, having committed suicide by drinking poison, chopping off his own head, and then throwing his own body out one window and the head out another. And THIS is the system MAGA wants to see in America?

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There’s a weird “analysis” of dissolving Donny’s businesses in AP, this morning. It takes the position that shutting down Donny’s fraudulent business will only empower the state to shut down other fraudulent businesses, and, after all, how fraudulent WAS Donny’s fraud? Oh, and he stopped some of his fraud – right after he got sued for providing fraudulent statements, so, what’s the problem? The “analysis” suggests that most of the time, when a business DID get shut down, the case was able to demonstrate who got hurt.

But THEN, it acknowledges that NY law doesn’t require showing damages, only an ongoing pattern of fraud. It acknowledges that not every business shut down showed damages. Despite the fact that the “analysis” seems to arguing against shutting down trump businesses, the article points out these things have been going on for at least eleven years and says, “Trump exaggerated the size of his Manhattan penthouse apartment by three times. He listed unfinished buildings as if they were complete, and apartments under rent-control as if they were free of such rules. He showed restricted funds as if they were liquid cash. And he portrayed Mar-a-Lago as if it could be converted to a residence even though that is prohibited in its deed.”

I’ll tell you this: When the “analysis” says, “Yeah he did all those things but we should just give the guy a break?” I suspect it was written by MAGA…

Risks and Rewards…

by MyBaconPress

When the guillotines come out, can we put the Sackler family at the front of the line? Just before the Kochs. The Sacklers knowingly and willingly killed hundreds of thousands of people. They reportedly made $11 billion dollars doing it. The settlement hasn’t been finalized but they’re being asked to contribute in the neighborhood of $6 billion. That leaves them with $11 billion. Yeah, I CAN do math. The $6 billion will be covered by investments and such and will be paid out over ten years. It won’t harm them. It will merely slow their income a bit – for a while. But even if it HAD come from their pockets, they’d STILL be $5 billion dollars to the good.

I hold that when a person or company commits a crime that makes them lots of money, the minimum penalty should be two times the amount they made. The Sackler murder spree netted the family $11 billion? The fine should be $22 billion. Because I’ll tell you this: nothing stops evil people from doing evil things when there’s a $5 billion dollar reward at the end…

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I’m a technology oriented guy. I’ve always been able to easily understand how technological improvements could benefit people’s lives. That’s the easy part, because it’s the part most techies want to see. It took me longer to understand how technology could be used for the wrong purposes, too. But I see it now and it’s one of those things in life that, once you learn to see it, you can’t UN see it.

So, when AI came around, I knew right away, there are many applications where this could make life better and easier. But I also saw risks right away. Especially in today’s conservative-driven, “a lie is as good as a truth” society. AI still isn’t all that good most of the time but it gets better every day and it’s already being deployed in politics. During the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, a deep-fake voice of Joe Biden was used to make a robo-call to people in NH, telling them to “save their vote for November,” as though voting in the primary would prevent them from voting in the general.

But there’s another side to it, too. A recording was recently unearthed of Roger Stone, one of Donny’s toadies, threatening the lives of sitting congressmen. He was talking to one of HIS toadies, Sal Greco. “It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Swalwell or Nadler has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this sh*t anymore.”

Stone has dismissed the thing as an AI deep fake. And, hey, maybe it is! Then again, maybe it isn’t. How can we tell, so how can we know? Do we really have to wait until someone tries to kill Swalwell or Nadler to decide if the recording is true? Tools we once used in order to know something was real or not real are now going to be used against us – so we can’t know what’s real or not real.

Another, arguably worse abuse? Some slob made deep fake, sexually explicit photos of Taylor Swift and put them out on the web. She’s a VERY popular person. She has gobs of money. She already has a congress critter addressing the problem on her behalf. She has an ARMY of fans out there, ready to be her eyes and ears to get the photos taken down. But what about Debbie from down the street? Or Jill from English class? Or Brenda or Karen in the 7/11? These women don’t have the resources or the millions of eyes working on their behalf. They’re just…victims, with little to no recourse.

And men? Well, a lot of us are still in the animal stage. I can’t even imagine the kind of crap Karen will have to endure when she shows up for her shift because some dude thought she really did do those things she decidedly did NOT do. SHE gets to suffer because some cretin dumbass is able to paste her face on someone else’s body – even in video. I presume there are already members of the puke set cruising social media, looking for pretty faces they can attach to other people’s bodies doing, well, other people’s bodies.

Deep fake AI is going to instill a kind of sensory deprivation. Soon, we will no longer be able to distinguish between real and imagined. That’s fine in a movie in which our protagonist takes on some fantasy monster. That’s a nightmare pretty much everywhere else.

My favorite two books on dystopian futures are ‘Brave New World’ and ‘1984.’ Both seem to have hit the mark in one way or another but ‘1984’ is proving most accurate, as conservatives bring Big Brother to fruition.

I keep hearing George Orwell’s threat echoing in my head, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” For years, MAGAGOPCORP has been telling it’s base to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears and MAGA is happy to comply. But now? No one will have to tell us to reject evidence. We’ll do it for them, thinking we’re looking at AI. I’ll tell you this: that will be a cancer in our society I think we’ll never beat – and cancer kills…

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I don’t think Crystal Hefner is coming off really well in her smear of Hugh and the lifestyle. She was 26 when she married 86 year old Hugh Hefner. Did ANYBODY believe it was true love? Was it supposed to be news that an 86 year old man relied on a blue pill to perform in bed? I thought everybody knew that what happened at the mansion was performative, done to maintain the illusion ‘Playboy’ sold.

What? Hugh Hefner was narcissistic? Say it ain’t so! How could she possibly have known? I mean, except for the fact that she started as his number three girlfriend and worked her way up. When the role you’re hired for is “Number Three Girlfriend,” are you NOT aware there’s a Number Two and a Number One? She was hired to do a job, play a role, and she did it. Coming out after the fact and saying, “I didn’t like the job and he was icky!” seems…disingenuous.

She left once. Out of the scene. She was gone for a year. Then she came back. Cause it sucked, I guess. She got paid to do a job. She did the job. That was the deal and, according to her, she knew it. She even got a bonus at the end, which is more than most of his “girlfriends” could say. I don’t find it convincing to spend years with a misogynist narcissist and then come out AFTER the fact pretending to be surprised that he was a misogynist narcissist…

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Championship day. In the NFC, we have the Lions at the Forty-Niners in Santa Clara. In the AFC, we get the Chiefs at the Ravens. These are all good teams and should be very good football games. I often think the Championship games are FAR better football than the Stupor Bowl so it’s likely these will be the last two really good games of the season.  I think the Niners have the best balance, overall, and should do well. Detroit is up-an-coming but I think they need a few pieces still. I’m glad the Lions have finally decided to field a decent team rather than just using the franchise as a tax write-off. I’m happy for the players. Not happy enough to hope they beat my Niners, though. (If they do, I’ll be less happy about their recent success…)

The Chiefs and the Ravens are similar teams. BOTH of them rely heavily on the legs of the Quarterbacks. The Chiefs QB is older and maybe not quite as mobile but still…he’s fast. Both teams have been to and won the Stupor Bowl in recent years. In fact, both teams have beaten the Niners in the Stupor Bowl in recent years. Uh-oh. (The Niners are better than they were then.)

I think the Niners will beat the Lions because of experience and, really, the Niners are loaded everywhere. I think the Chiefs will beat the Ravens because of Andy Reid. I suspect Reid actually deserves the title of greatest Head Coach of all time. His team may be older but Reid has guile. Besides, the Chiefs have Taylor Swift and the NFL LIKES having her at the games. It’s good for ratings, you know…

The Defame Game…

by MyBaconPress

It’s always his mouth, isn’t it? Well, no. Apparently, sometimes it’s his fingers but MOST of the time, it’s his own, awful mouth that gets him in trouble. This one has a ‘coming-home-to-roost’ feel, though. In the NY fraud case in which Donny inflates and deflates values depending on how his answers affect him financially, one of the things that seems to bother him the most (weirdly, really) is that, officially, his Florida not-a-home-because-he-swore-it-wouldn’t-be is worth $18- to $21-million dollars. That’s in the record.

He is SO obsessed with that one point, it caused him to write one of his biggest hits, the classic, ‘Mar-a-Lago Worth A Lot!’ He does it at every show, without fail. Of course, like many of his standards, it’s an epic and wandering bit. By now, we all know the chorus:
  ’Mar-a-Lago, worth ten times!
  I be hassled by those Slimes!
  It sell fast, 1 point 8 billion!
  Who knows? Maybe more, a trillion?’

Yeah, catchy. The thing is, the value of Mar-a-Lago is set by the county assessor’s office based on, you know, an assessment… and, apparently, a bit of negotiation between the county and the property owner – Donny – who actually got the county to lower their original assessment. It lowered his property tax, you see. EXACTLY what he’s being charged with in New York. The point is, Mar-a-Lago is officially valued at $18 – $21 million dollars but he keeps insisting, based on his muse, I guess, that it’s worth $1.8 Billion, minimum.

But that’s not the story I wanted to tell you…

The story I wanted to tell you involves his OTHER New York civil trial, in which he’s already been found responsible for raping Ms. Carroll. THAT one inspired an entire concept album that gave us a string of hits, including ‘E. Jean is Not My Lover,’ ‘I Never Even Knew Her’, ‘Not My Type,’ and ‘Isn’t That Marla?’ Of course, ‘Isn’t That Marla?’ isn’t as well known outside certain circles. For MY money, though, it was the ‘B’ side, ‘Unfortunately…or Fortunately,’ that sold that record. But I digress.

As you no doubt recall, the ruling in the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial was made a long, long time ago. He was ordered to pay $5 million dollars in damages. His minions coughed that up in about 20 minutes, though, so he didn’t give two figs. ”Please support Trump. He needs your help to win back the White House. Stop Joe Biden! MAGA! (Please make your checks out to the New York State Unified Court System, Attn: E. Jean Carroll.”)

Of course, he ran right out and started in on her again. So, she sued him again. Now the court is trying to decide how much is enough to shut this guy’s vicious, flapping maw once and for all. Donny’s team tried to downplay the damages and pretend she wasn’t harmed, so everybody should just forget the whole thing and go home. E. Jean Carroll’s team made their case that this guy is worth a LOT so the disgorgement needed to be substantial or he won’t even feel it and, therefore, won’t stop. TO that end, they presented, to the jury, Donny’s claims that Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.8 billion dollars. This is for deciding punitive damages, the “punishment” part.

Frankly I enjoyed watching Carroll’s team use Donny’s own lying words against him. I enjoyed seeing his braggadocio come back to bite him, rather than impressing everyone with how rich he is. I once wrote in these pages that I would like to see the county assessor’s office send him a letter telling him they’ve decided to use HIS valuation so here is the new property tax amount along with the back taxes he owes for shortfalls in the past. Mine was just a fantasy. Carroll’s team made it real. I laughed out loud.

When all is said and done, Donny has been ordered to pay $83.3 million dollars in damages. No, that’s wrong. The minions need to cough up $83.3 million dollars. Donny can’t be expected to pay. He’s got a writer to defame…

Cognition…

by MyBaconPress

I read this in a Huffpost article called ‘Donald Trump Challenged Nikki Haley To An ‘Aptitude Test’ And You Know What Happened.’ Donny had this quote: “In fact, when I heard the word ‘cognitive,’ you know, I’ve taken two of them now,” Trump continued. “I took one with Doc Ronnie, who’s now a fantastic, you know, White House doctor and a fantastic congressman from Texas. Admiral. The White House doctor. Jackson. Ronny Jackson. And he’s now a great congressman from Texas. I took one then, and I took one recently. I think the result was announced and it was, I aced it twice. I aced it.”

Trump added, “But I would say that, you know, I’ve actually called for a cognitive test for anybody running for president because I actually think that’s a good idea. It’d be nice to have an intelligent person be president.”

The first paragraph shows Donny’s ‘wander around’ technique of managing words he can’t say or sometimes an idea he can’t quite connect. It happens in nearly every public speech I’ve ever heard him give. He gets to a word and, for whatever reason, he can’t say the word. He keeps talking, though. He kind of verbally wanders around the word he’s trying to say, all the while riffing, freestyle, on what he meant to say, until he gets the word down or finds a replacement word, then goes back to his speech like it never happened.

You can see it in that first paragraph as he tries to recollect who he took the test from and who that guy is. It’s one of those, “Whose that actor? He was in… It was a wolf thing… He did… Uh, Jackman, Hugh Jackman!” In Donny’s case, though, it was more like, “I took it from a doctor. Who’s that doctor? He was the White House Doctor, what’s his name? He’s an admiral. Oh, Jackson, that’s it! Ronnie Jackson.”

Coupla things. 1 – Someone in his inner circle needs to try to make him understand, one does not “ace” a cognitive test. It’s more pass/fail. 2 – The last line of the second quoted paragraph suggests that Donny thinks he’s taking an IQ test when he takes a cognitive test. Which means he thinks the fact that he can still identify an elephant makes him a genius. 3 – Finally, he might want to STOP bragging that, twice now, someone has felt the need to have him take a cognitive test. TWICE!

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There’s a possibility that Alina Habba may have lied to a Federal judge. Nice, eh? One of the jurors in the E. Jean Carroll case wasn’t feeling well and there was some Covid concern. The judge, most likely, would have just replaced that member with an alternate and Donny would have been free to give his promised testimony the day before the New Hampshire primary.

But then Habba, Donny’s “lawyer,” said SHE wasn’t feeling well, either, and may have been exposed to Covid, so the trial was delayed. The thing is, she was later photographed out in public and at campaign events with Donny. She didn’t look sick at all.

Donny’s testimony, if he makes it at all, is most likely to be more of his current hit, “Oh, poor, poor me,” (assuming he can remember who he is long enough to get his self-pity into the record). I would GUESS it won’t amount to a hill of beans. It certainly is not going to off-set all the new evidence he keeps generating in the case. But here’s the thing; one does not get to “call in sick” as a “mental health day” when one is an attorney and a trial is happening. If she told the judge she was sick and she wasn’t? Federal judges tend to take ‘lying to a Federal judge’ seriously. Stay tuned…

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Okay, here’s exactly how badly MAGAGOP wants to stop immigrants from coming to America. Cons in Congress have been negotiating with the Biden administration. They’re holding hostage the funding for Ukraine and Israel until a deal gets hammered out on the southern border. It was a pretty “asshole” move but I already indicated it’s MAGA. The “asshole” part is implied and expected.

But now? With Donny’s win in New Hampshire, MAGAGOP has decided he’s got a lock on the nomination (duh…) and – get this – Donny wants to use the immigration “issue” in his campaign. If the two sides reach an agreement, he has less he can say. So MAGAGOP is turning sour on the deal. Moscow Mitch “the bitch” McConnell cleverly said, out loud where people could hear, “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him.” Like…make an agreement on immigration policy?

So, when one can simply set aside their oh-so-urgent, absolutely imperative, gotta do it NOW, issue for a little while in order to boost their preferred candidate’s campaign? I’ll tell you this: I really had believed the immigration issue was important to them. Now that it, too, has been revealed to be nothing more than a campaign wedge issue, I’m not going to worry about it too much any more.

(Shakes head) Effin’ cons…

Races…

by MyBaconPress

Sometimes, I get tired of the charade. With DeSantis out, Nikki Haley is the only other candidate trying to give Donny a run for his money. I respect what she’s trying to do. That is, offer up someone – better. But the Republican Party is dominated by MAGA, not Republicans, and MAGA only has eyes for Donny. The media is pretending that if everything breaks just right, she might have maybe a chance to possibly show something that gets MAGAs attention in New Hampshire. After that? All Donny. Everyone knows it. This “race” has never been between Donny and DeSantis or Haley. It’s a race between Donny and Jack Smith. Sadly, with each passing day, Donny seems to be pulling ahead. (Remember, he doesn’t have to beat the charges. He has only to stall long enough for MAGA and Putin to put him back into the Oval…)

Meanwhile, on the left, who cares? We get Biden, like it or not. Well, in fairness, there is a guy named Dean Phillips running (Who? Yeah, that’s my point.) One can also choose Marianne Williamson if you prefer a love and Kumbaya platform. Hey, again, they’re offering up alternatives,which I like. But they’re not strong enough alternatives to be real alternatives so…what’s the point?

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Right now, there is a flood of people coming up from south of the American border, trying to get into the United States because, ostensibly, the United States is still better than the place they’re running from. But if Donny DOES end up back in the Oval, I suspect that tide will slow, stop, and reverse as the Hispanics go back – and thinking Americans will be racing to go with them. MAGA has actually, almost succeeded in turning the United States of America into a country decent people flee…

Necesito practico mi español, ahora…

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Every accusation is a confession. The right has been trying to paint Biden as cognitively impaired due to his age. As soon as we heard it, we should have known Donny is suffering from dementia. He gave a speech in which he questioned, several times, why Nikki Haley didn’t do more to protect the Capitol from his attack on J6. That’s his standard Nancy Pelosi riff. Nancy and Nikki don’t look, act, or sound alike. How could he get the two confused?

He has also said, more than once, that he ran against and beat Barack Obama. That one is even worse. I mean, Nancy and Nikki don’t look, act, or sound alike but Barack and Hillary REALLY don’t look, act, or sound alike. There are other examples that he’s losing it. Often, he can’t even manage the English language.

I think the pace of his faltering is picking up as the criminal charges pile up. Pressure, you know. Maybe senility will make him a better President. His handlers can, perhaps, convince him he DIDN’T say to kill all his enemies – or that the deed was done, for example.

It continues to boggle my mind that the specter of Donald Trump back in the White House is a real and present danger to the United States of America…

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Well, that was a serious weekend of football. I’m okay with it because my Niners managed to pull out a victory at the end but props to Green Bay. They played very well and they nearly pulled off bumping the number one seed.

I’m a Niner fan but I also like other teams. The Bills, for instance. That poor team is very, very good but things just…go wrong for them for some reason. Decades ago, the Bills went on something of a tear. They went to four straight Stupor Bowls. They lost them all, but they’re STILL the only team to make it to the big game four straight years and that accomplishment commands respect. The FIRST one they lost, their kicker pulled a game-winning kick wide right for the miss. Yesterday, they were in a position to tie their playoff game and go into overtime. Their kicker pulled the game-tying kick wide right for the miss. Now they get to watch the rest of the post-season on TV…

It crossed my mind that the NFL might very well LIKE having Taylor Swift at their games and that in order to have Taylor at the games, TRAVIS has to play. THAT means, the Chiefs need to stay in. Yeah, I know. Conspiracy theory. People like to pretend that Bill Belichick is the greatest coach of all time. (There’s LOTS of hyperbole in football.) I’d say that honor actually belongs to Andy Reid, the coach of the Chiefs. I threw in that last part so you know I understand. The Chiefs are a VERY good team and don’t need the NFL to “help” them get in…

Corporations United, Citizens Disregarded…

by MyBaconPress

On January 21, 2010, the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court of the United States (SKCOTUS) issued their ill-fated Citizens United ruling. The court was bitterly divided, smart people vs conservatives. The thinking justices opposed the ruling. So, guess who was for it? Of course, it was the always-wrong cons – all the usual suspects. John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel “pay to play” Alito, Clarence “give me money” Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy all ruled against America that day – and we, the people, have been paying the price ever since.

There used to be limits imposed on how much people could donate to politicians by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and, specifically, against corporations and unions from using their general treasuries to fund “electioneering communications” or radio, TV, or satellite broadcasts that refer to a candidate for federal office within 60 days before a general election and within 30 days of a primary election. (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA, Section 203) The thinking was that political donations should, properly, be viewed as political speech, but that some people can donate more than others, and if they donate enough, they can literally buy a candidate, so there was a cap. Everybody could donate if they wanted to, but nobody could donate over a certain amount. It leveled the donations playing field. It protected the little guy’s free speech.

Then a non-profit group of conservatives called Citizens United made a movie about Hillary Clinton. It was called ‘Hillary: the Movie.’ (You’ve got to keep it simple for a con.) It was a smear job on Hillary that basically said she was unqualified to be President. They wanted to show the movie just before the primaries in 2008 but the FEC said it violated Section 203 of the BCRA. Citizens United sued the FEC. They argued that Section 203 violated their First Amendment rights.

I never saw the movie. I doubt there was ever any intention of showing the movie or if anyone ever really cared. I suspect the movie was the vehicle necessary to get the case before the Kangaroo Court. ALL of the lower courts that heard the case had ruled against Citizens United. But the five aforementioned morons pretended that (they said this) independent spending cannot be corrupt and that said spending would be transparent. THAT, right there, is the danger to responding to one’s delusions instead of logic and reason. BOTH of those assumptions have proven (<–see? evidence!) false.

The very concerns the FEC had voiced about rich people buying politicians and elections have proven to be absolutely true and the delusional claims to the contrary have proven, not just false, but ridiculously, should-be-embarrassed stupid. They’re not, though. Embarrassed, that is. I suspect they knew they were lying when they dropped their “explanation.” They just had to offer some kind of cover story. The bribes had been paid, the ruling had to be made.

So, now, corporations have more “free speech” than I do…you know, being people as they obviously are not. In fact, corporations have SO much more “free speech” than I do, MY free speech simply cannot be heard over the din. (Yours, either.) So, do you know where the fraudulent “corporations are people” idea came from? It’s really irritating.

These days, Americans are all in a dither about whether a known traitor should be allowed to be President again. Is it possible to protect this once-great nation using the 14th Amendment, section 3? Well, it’s the self-same 14th Amendment that people point to in support of that stupid, stupid “corporations are people” idea. Well, not the 14th Amendment, itself. The 14th was just the law used to reinforce the idea that different people deserve equal protection.

The Equal Protection Clause has played a crucial role in major Supreme Court rulings involving interracial marriage (1967’s Loving v. Virginia), affirmative action (1978’s Regents of the University of California v. Bakke) and same-sex marriage (2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges). It was also the thinking behind Roe v Wade (1973), when the Court found that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the zone of privacy protected under the 14th Amendment. (See? There WAS a time the high court worked to protect Americans…)

But it wasn’t really even the 14th! There was a case in 1886 called ‘Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad.’ It was a tax assessment case (boring!) that has no real bearing on this subject, except that the final ruling was based on the 14th. BUT, the court reporter in that case added a hand-written headnote. It ostensibly quoted Chief Justice Morrison Waite as saying: “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”

So there it is, the thing that made corporations “people.” A hand-written headnote that MIGHT quote the Chief Justice but was never a formal part of the ruling. Oh, but it’s been TREATED as an official part of the verdict ever since and in 2010, the Roberts SKCOTUS used it – or misused it – to usurp individual American’s rights once and for all.

There have been plenty of people who tried to warn against the ‘people are corporations’ idea. Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that corporations were “artificial” persons rather than “natural” persons, and that granting them the right to political expression could “pose special dangers in the political sphere.” He was right. Justice John Paul Stevens argued in his dissent to Citizens United that “Corporations…are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.” He was right.

Soon after the ruling, then-President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that the decision would “open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections.” He was right, too. Please note, no effort was ever made by Congress, among the recipients of this beautiful and endless bounty, to correct the “error.” Go figure…

I’m getting ready to post my revised Constitution for your perusal. (I’m having trouble with WordPress making the jump points back and forth work properly.) One of the changes I recommend is found in my moving the Ninth Amendment to a kind of umbrella statement at the beginning of the Bill of Rights. It says, “Section 1:  – The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, nor shall they be construed to apply to any entity other than individuals.

One sentence. A clause, really. But I’ll tell you this: it fixes a problem that threatens the very existence of the United States as we know it. Or, rather, as it once was and could be again – but isn’t now. Corporations own the country now. And we, the people, are just an afterthought…

What A Loser…

by MyBaconPress

The more wrong they are, the louder they are. There’s not much of a better display of that than Donny and Alina in court. They’re very disruptive. He spends all of his time telling his boot-lickers that he’s innocent and can prove it but never proves it and instead, disrupts the process. SHE follows suit. Recently, at his E. Jean Carroll trial, Habba asked for a delay in the trial proceedings so Donny could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral. This is the second time she’s asked.

The first time, her request was denied. The judge explained that Donny doesn’t have to be at the trial. If he wants to go do something else, he can. As it stands, he goes out campaigning whenever he wants to and then drops back into the courtroom whenever he wants to, always without consequence. That pretty clearly indicates that the judge is correct. The judge, correctly, told her he would NOT delay the trial and that she can NOT ask again. So, of course, she started to argue with him about it.

Judge Kaplan interrupted her and told her he would not hear more argument about it. The matter is settled. When she started to argue more anyway, the judge told her to sit down. So SHE says to a sitting judge, in his courtroom, “I don’t like being spoken to that way, your honor.” Then started again. The judge cut her off. ”It’s denied. Sit down.”

Donny is very definitely receiving special treatment, just like he claims. The thing is, the special treatment he’s receiving is kid gloves. ANY other person in a courtroom would have been sanctioned and, likely, jailed for antics like that. The judge told Donny he knew that’s exactly what Donny wants, to be jailed. Donny agreed. ”I would love that.” The hope for Donny and the concern for everyone else is that jailing his criminal ass would be a literal trigger event.

I’ll tell you this: I’m sick and tired of watching him get away with this show. I’d like to see the judge throw his whiny ass in jail. Historically, decisions that get handed down (or don’t) in an effort to avoid a fight, rarely avoid the fight and often cause more problems. If MAGA wants to start murdering people over their delusional belief in a con-man, then let’s fight the fight. The United States of America is FAR more important than Donny’s shriveled and glass-like ego…

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Can we explore this, just for a second? Donny says a President MUST have complete immunity to do whatever he wants, no matter what it is, AND that said immunity rightly applies to ALL presidents, not just him. Donny ALSO says Joe Biden will do anything to stop him, anything at all. DONNY has just made the case that Joe should just have Donny whacked – and that there’s nothing anybody could do to Biden. All that “complete immunity,” you know.

Fortunately for Donny, the President does NOT have complete immunity so Biden can’t just have him whacked. Unfortunately for Donny, the President does NOT have complete immunity so Donny gets to live but he may be living in prison…

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I’m not sure why the Republicans are going through with the charade of having primaries. In a sense, the entire game is rigged in Donny’s favor. It’s not really that they’ve done anything illegal, in this case. It’s just that ONLY registered Republicans are allowed to vote in their primaries. MAGA pushed rational Republicans out of the party and all there are left are MAGA. MAGA is all in on Donny, no matter what he does or to whom he does it. (They just deny all the bad stuff and make up a bunch of good stuff, as though the good stuff might actually have happened.)

The only positive I see is that the rest of us get to see, in real time and on a state by state basis, the people who hate America so much they would return a known traitor to the White House. I’ve put in a lot of effort to show how these folks are deceived and I stand by that. But at some point, a person MUST take responsibility for the fact that they choose to stay deceived. Correct information is available and most of us manage to distinguish truth from fiction, even with all of this noise. And when they don’t, they’re starting to sound dangerously stupid.

Let’s say they can really convince themselves that all of these trials, in all of these venues, over all of these very widespread legal matters are really just thousands of people conspiring together and keeping their perfect little secret in an effort to persecute MAGA’s precious. (They can’t. They know he’s guilty. They just don’t care.) How does one “spin” the fact that the GOP has been on a near-perfect losing streak since Donny’s anomalous win in 2016? He promised they’d win and win and win and they’d win so much they would get tired of winning. Instead, they lose and lose and lose and they lose so much, they must be tired of losing. If they can’t distinguish between what he says, “We’ll win,” and what happens – lose, lose, lose – they shouldn’t be allowed outside without supervision. It’s pretty basic stuff…